Bobrinsky
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First Count Bobrinsky in infancy (1760s). |
Counts Bobrinsky or
Bobrinskoy (
Бобринские) are a
Russian noble family descending from
Catherine the Great's natural son by Count
Grigory Orlov -
Aleksey Grigorievich Bobrinsky (1762-1813).
The Russian Empress gave birth to her only illegitimate son on
April 11,
1762, several months before her ascension to the throne. The child was named Aleksey after his uncle and godfather, Count
Aleksey Orlov. He was brought up in
Bobriki, a village in the
Tula guberniya. On
April 2,
1781 Catherine sent him a letter, in which she openly avowed her maternity. She long hesitated in choosing his surname, styling him Romanov one day and Sitsky the other, but finally settled on Bobrinsky, a surname derived from the estate he lived in. On the 5th day of his reign,
Emperor Paul made his half-brother a
Count of the
Russian Empire and promoted him General-Major. He married Baroness Anna Dorothea
von Ungern-Sternberg (1769-1846) and had issue which continues to this day. The first count Bobrinsky died on
June 20,
1813 in his estate of Bogoroditsk, to the east of
Tula.
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Bolotov's watercolour representing the chateau and park in Bogoroditsk (1786). |
The Bobrinsky family nest in
Bogoroditsk was designed by
Ivan Starov and constructed in the 1770s and 1780s, starting in
1773. The nearby Kazanskaya church was completed by
1778. The park was laid out by the palace's administrator,
Andrey Bolotov (1738-1833), who is better known as one of the first Russian economists. It was Bolotov who established the Children's Theatre in Bogoroditsk. The palace and estate were renovated in the 1870s. In the 20th century, the premises suffered enormous damage from the
Bolsheviks, who demolished the wings of the palace in
1929, and from the
Wehrmacht, who blew up the chateau in December
1941. The palace was restored in the 1960s and now functions as a museum.
Aleksey's son Count
Aleksey Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1800-1868) is remembered as the founder of the sugar-processing industry in Imperial Russia. After brief and uneventful career at the royal court, he retired from service and settled in Bogoroditsk, establishing one of the first
Russian sugar refineries there. Later, he moved his operations to the
Ukraine, making various agricultural activities the chief source of his family income. It was thanks to him that Russia stopped to import sugar from abroad. He also published a treatise on economic theory and set up a society for development of railways, which financed the construction of the first railway in Russia. Bobrinsky's contributions to the national economics were commemorated by a bronze statue in
Kiev.
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An English plate with the Bobrinsky coat of arms. |
Unlike many other Russian nobles, the Bobrinskys continued as prosperous businessmen after the
1861 emancipation of serfs, starting
coal-mining in their estates near
Tula and helping to build railways all over Russia. Unsurprisingly, Aleksey Alekseyevich's second son Count
Vladimir Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1824-98) served as Minister of Transportation in 1868-71, succeeded in this post by his cousin, Count
Aleksey Pavlovich Bobrinsky (1826-1894).
The eldest great-grandson of Count Aleksey Alekseyevich was Count
Aleksey Aleksandrovich Bobrinskoy (1852-1927), who led the Council of United Nobility since
1906 and represented the nobility of the
St Petersburg guberniya in the
Senate and the 3rd
State Duma. He was appointed into the
State Council of Imperial Russia in
1912. During the
First World War, Bobrinskoy was elected Chairman of the
Russian-English Bank. In
1916, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Interior and Minister of Agriculture. The
October Revolution forced him to emigrate to
France, where he actively campaigned for the monarchist cause.
Count
Vladimir Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1868-1927) was the third son of Count Aleksey Pavlovich. He represented Russian nationalists in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th
State Dumas, advocating speedy
Russification of border regions and supporting
Pyotr Stolypin's reforms. Like most of the Bobrinskys, he emigrated to France following the revolutionary nationalization of their family enterprises.
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The treasures of Alexis Bobrinsky's collection included this 2500-year-old golden comb, unearthed by him in Ukraine, and the famous Bobrinski bucket. |
Apart from politics, Count Aleksey Alexandrovich was a noted historian and archaeologist, Chairman of the Imperial Archaeological Commission (1886), Vice-President of the
Imperial Academy of Arts (1889), and Chairman of the Free Economic Society (1894). He led the excavations of
Scythian mounds near
Kerch and
Kiev, describing some of his findings in the monograph on Tauric
Chersonesos (1905).
Vladimir's nephew, Count
Nikolay Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1890-1964) specialized in
biology. Unlike his relatives, he chose to remain in
Moscow after the revolution and came to be recognized as one of the most prominent Soviet
zoologists. A species of
jerboa is named after him. His son Nicholas, a geographer, lives in Moscow.
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Homepage of the Bogoroditsk Museum*
Bobrinsky Estate in Bogoroditsk*
Genealogy of the Bobrinsky family
